


Ink and Paper

by MagitekUnit05953234



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Chill XV, Fluff, Gen, Mentioned Ignis Scientia, Mild canon divergence, Prompto has ADHD, Prompto takes advanced classes in high school and you can’t tell me otherwise, The boys do some modern witchcraft, Why? Because I can write whatever I want, Witchcraft, brotherhood era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16312523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: Prompto sucks a breath in through his teeth in that way he does when he thinks he’s about to say something stupid. Noctis rustles up all three brain cells he has dedicated to social skills and readies himself for the another battle in the eternal war against Prompto’s subtle but constant self deprecation.





	Ink and Paper

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "witches" from Tumblr user raneam-o1's gothic prompt list.  
> I picture the boys as early year high school sophomores here. I hope that means something to most of y’all since I’m running off the American school system.  
> “Magic” refers to Noct’s Crystal-granted divine magic and stuff  
> “Magick” refers to witchcraft

The last class of the day closes and Noct finds Prompto waiting outside the study hall room, doodling on the edge of his long-completed trig worksheet.

“Hey,” Noctis taps Prompto on the shoulder, causing Prompto’s pencil to skitter off the side of the page, leaving a thin line across problem two. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Prompto turns his pencil over and erases the mark, leveling a joking glare at Noctis as he does it. “Man, did you _have_ to do that?”

“How else was I gonna get your attention?” Noctis holds out a hand to help Prompto up from his sitting position and the offer is accepted. “It's not like you ever hear anything when you're that focused anyway.”

“That's totally not my fault and you know it,” Prompto tucks his pencil —lime green, mechanical, with the clip broken off by idle hands— behind his ear. He pokes Noctis on the sternum with the tip of his folder. “ _Hey,_  we were in such a hurry, remember?! We going or not?”

“We're going,” Noctis pulls his phone out, checking the time. “Specs’ll be here in ten. Gotta stop by your locker?”

Prompto shakes his head and starts off down the hallway, walking backward just because he can. “Got all my stuff already.”

The ride to Noctis's apartment is pretty much the same as usual. Ignis tries to make conversation with Prompto —who is still convinced Ignis hates him for some reason— and fails miserably, eventually letting his attempt at interaction with Prompto fade into nothing. Noctis gives his standard answers to queries about his day. _Fine. Okay. Not bad. Boring. Not much._

Ignis drops Noctis and Prompto off, sees them inside, and promises to be back at quarter to five. Noctis and Prompto are left with nearly two hours to mess around before Ignis returns and gets on Noct’s case about finishing his homework.

(Noct usually uses his study hall hour to sleep rather than do homework, whereas Prompto —whose schedule is too full with dual credit courses for a study hall— either gets his homework done in record time between classwork and lectures or can't focus to save his life and has to cram it all in late at night when he gets home.)

Noct’s phone beeps, signaling the end of his fifteen minute turn on Assassin's Creed, and he pauses the game to switch with Prompto. When he holds out the controller in Prompto’s direction, he finds that Prompto isn’t paying attention at all. Prompto’s pulled out one of his school notebooks and is drawing again. When Noct leans over to get a better idea of what he’s doing, he sees that it’s more of those symbols Prompto was drawing all over his math homework earlier. Noct has caught glimpses of Prompto drawing that sort of thing before, but never got a good look at them.

“What’re those?” Noct puts his game controller aside and pokes at Prompto’s notebook.

Prompto glances up, reddens, and sucks a breath in through his teeth in that way he does when he thinks he’s about to say something stupid. Noctis rustles up all three brain cells he has dedicated to social skills and readies himself for the another battle in the eternal war against Prompto’s subtle but constant self deprecation.

“Okay,” Prompto closes the notebook and taps a quick rhythm on the cover with his pencil. “So this is gonna sound really stupid—“

  
“I doubt it.”

  
“...and you’re probably gonna laugh at me—“

  
“I’m not.”

“If you say so,” Prompto hums.”So uh. You know magick?”

Noctis blinks. “Yeah. That's kinda my whole life.”

“Nah, not like that,” Prompto shuffles in his seat. “Like, witchcraft. Magick with a k. Plebe stuff.”

Noct is… vaguely aware of that sort of thing. Mostly from his history courses (ah, the joys of the Paglan witch trials unit) but he’s pretty sure a few ‘Glaives are into modern witchcraft as a holdover from their homelands. Noct never put much thought into it.

“Well,” Noct says, trying to gather his thoughts. “What about it?”

“I kinda, ah,” Prompto grimaces. “I like to do that in my spare time. Magick and stuff. I know it’s stupid, especially when I’m friends with _you_ of all people, but—”

“It’s not stupid,” Noct turns to face Prompto fully. “Does it matter to you?”

“Y- yeah,” Prompto casts his gaze aside. “I like it.”

“Then it’s cool,” Noct hopes he looks as encouraging as he’s trying to be, but the gods know he’s just plain awful at making his face cooperate half the time. “So, what’re the things you’re drawing, then?”

“You really wanna listen to me talk about it?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean if you don’t mind—”

“Prompto. I _don’t._ ”

“Okay,” Prompto reopens his notebook and flips through to the page he was scribbling on. “So, this is a sigil—”

* * *

 

“Do you think my magic will make this work better or worse?” Noct stares at the paper on the table in front of him. It’s covered in tentative designs he’d been working on, each a little more polished than the last.

“I mean,” Prompto uncaps his pen with his teeth and speaks with the cap still in his mouth. “Your magic is from Bahamut, right?”

“I guess. The Crystal is a Bahamut thing.”

“Well, fire magick is derived from Ifrit so he might not like that,” Prompto grins. “But to hell with Ifrit, right? As far as I’m concerned, my magick’s from me.”

“So,” Noct casts a nervous glance at the smoke detector blinking green at on the ceiling a few feet from the table. “Are we actually setting stuff on fire?”

“It’s how I usually do it,” Prompto fishes a butane lighter out of his pocket and slaps it onto the table next to his stack of sticky notes. “You don’t have to though.”

“No, I want to,” Noctis is apprehensive to say the least. He doesn’t really put much stock in this _magick_ stuff, but it makes Prompto happy. Prompto was ridiculously excited when Noct mentioned that he wanted to try some sigilwork. If setting some stuff on fire is all it takes to see Prompto grin from ear to ear then Noct will set the whole Crown City alight.

Well… maybe not the _whole_ city. At this rate it might just be Noct’s apartment. It’ll probably end up being Noct’s apartment. 

“Have you picked out the sigil you wanna use?” Prompto rounds the table and inspects Noct’s little collection of scribbled sigils. Noct begins to feel a little like it’s the first time he ever tried to summon something from the arsenal.

“This one,” Noct points to one of the later designs. It was originally a circle divided by various lines, full of vague suggestions of letter shapes. Now there are several portions carved out of the curves as if a knife cleaved them off.

“Ooh, good one!” Prompto slides his piles of sticky notes over to Noct. “I’m gonna go grab my incense… _and_ a bowl of water so we don’t burn this place down. You pick a color sticky note that feels right and copy your sigil down on it.”

“That’s it?”

“Just keep your intent in mind as your draw,” Prompto makes his way to the kitchen, speaking over his shoulder. “It’s the intent that’s the most important thing.”

“Right,” Noctis watches Prompto leave then turns his attention to his pen. Noct tried a trick out earlier and it seemed to work okay, so he takes his pen apart, clasps the ink cartridge in his hands, and focuses on his connection to the Crystal.

There’s no logic to enchanting pen ink with healing magic. It doesn’t hold the actual healing effect at all, and even if it did it’s not like anyone’s gonna start drinking ink. Nonetheless, Noct likes the thought of writing this sigil with something that’s been touched by his limited ability to heal and protect. It feels right.

Noct reconstructs his pen and copies his sigil down on a pastel yellow sticky note.

“You ready?” Prompto comes back with a bowl balanced on a plate in one hand and a plastic shopping bag hanging from the other.

“I think so,” Noct finishes the last little circle in his sigil and takes the bag from Prompto as he returns to the table. Noct digs through the things inside. “S’this that incense stuff?”

“Yeah,” Prompto sets the bowl and then sticks his hand in the water it contains on what seems to be an impulse judging by the way he sheepishly dries his hand on his jeans. “There’s an incense holder in the bag. Grab that, pick a scent you like, and we can go to town.”

Noct picks out a vanilla-scented incense stick and sets up the holder with Prompto’s help. Setting the sigil on fire and lighting the end of the incense stick with it is a little sad after all the work Noct put into making all of it, but it’s worth it for the look on Prompto’s face when Noct lights the paper with a snap of his fingers instead of using the lighter.

“Now we wait for the incense to burn out,” Prompto settles in, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling. “When the smoke’s gone, the universe will remember your intent and make it true. Cool, right?”

“Yeah,” Noct kinda like this. “Hope it works.”

“You’ve got no faith in plebe magick,” Prompto grins. “Just you wait. It’ll happen. Always works for me.”

The incense burns out. Noct lets himself believe.

* * *

 

 

 

 

_THE ONES I LOVE WILL BE PROTECTED FROM HARM_

 


End file.
